University of South Carolina Libraries
THE NUMERAL SEVEN Dr. Talmage Discourses on Bible Mathematics. A FAVORITE NUMBER WITH The Divine Mind. Take Care of the Present, Says the Great Divine; God Will Take Care of the Future. Many of the ijportant doctrines of the Bible are by Dr. Talmage 1,resented in this sermon in a very unusual way. Genesis ii, 3, "God blessed the seventh day." The mathematics of the Bible are no iceable; the geometry and the arithme tic, t e square in Ezekiel, the circle spoken of in Isaiah, the curve alluded to in Job, the rule of fractions men tioned in Daniel, the rule of loss and gain in Mark, wheie Christ asks the people to cipher out by that rule what it would "profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul." Bit there is one mathematical figure that is crowned above all others in the Bible. It is the numeral seven. which the A ra bians got from India and all followinz ages have taken from the Arabians. It stands between the figure six and the figure eight. In the bible all the other numeralq bow to it. Over ;00 times it is mentior;d in the Scriptures. either alone or compounded with other words. In Genesis the week is rounded into seven days, and I use my text because there this numeral is for the first time introduced in a journey which halts not until in the close of the book of Revela tion its monument is built into the wall of heaven in chrysolite, which in the strata of precious stones is the seventh. In the Bible we find that Jacob had to serve seven years to get Rachel, but she was well worth it, and, foretelling the years of prosperity and famine in Pharaoh's time, the seven fat oxen were eaten up of the seven lean oxen, and wisdom is said to be built on seven pil lars, and the ark was left with the Phil istines seven years, and Naaman, for the cure of his leprosy, plunged in the Jordan seven times; to the house that Ezekiel saw in vision there we seven steps; the walls of Jericho, before they fell down, were compassed seven days; Zecheariah describes a stone with seven eyes; to cleanse a leprous house the door must be sprinkled with pige-ns' blood seven times; in Canaan were over thrown seven nations: on one occasicn Christ cast out seven devils; on a moun tain he fed a multitude of people with seven loaves, the fragments left filling seven baskets, and the closing passages of the Bible are magnificent and over whelming .wth the imagery made up of seven churafes, seven stars, seven can diesticks, seven seals, seven angels and seven heads and seven crowns and seven horns and seven spirits and seven phials and seven plagues and seven thunders. Yea, the numeral seven seems a fav orite with the divine mind outside as well as inside the Bible, for are there not seven prismatic colors? And when God with the iainbow wrote the com forting thought that the world would never have another deluge he wrote it on the scroll of the sky in ink of seven colors. He grouped into the Pleiades seven stars. Rome, the capital of the world, sat on seven hills. When God would make the most intelligent thing on earth, the human countenance, he fashioned it with seven features -the two ears, the two eyes, the two nostrils and the mnouth. Yea, our body lasts only seven years, and we gradually shed it for another body after another seven years, and so on, for we are as to our bodies septennial animals. So the numeral seven ranges through nature and through revelation. It is the num ber of perfection, and so I use it while I speak of the seven candlesticks, the seven stars, the seven seals and the seven thunders. The seven golden candlesticks were and are the churches. Mark you, the churches never were and never can be candles. They are only candlesticks. They are not the light, but they are to hold the light. A room in the night might have in it 500 candlesticks and yet you could not see your hand before your face. The only use of a candle stick, and the only use of a church is to hold up the light, You see it is a dark world the night of sin, the night of troubie, the night of superstition,.n night of persecution, the night of p erty, the night of sickness, the night of death; aye, about 50 nights have in terlocked their shadows. The whole race goes stumbling~ over prostrated hopes and fallen fortunes and empty flour barrels and desolated cradles and deathbeds. How much we have use for all the seven candlesticks, with lights olazing from the top of each one of them! Light of pardon for all sin! Light of comfort for all trouble! Light of encouragement for all despondency! Light of eternal riches for all poverty! Light of rescue for all persecution! Light of reunion for all the bereft' Light of heaven for all the dying! And thrat light is Christ, who is the light that shall yet irradiate the hemis pheres. But mark you, when I say churches are not candles, but candlesticks. I cast no slur on candlesticks. I believe in beautiful candlesticks. The candle sticks that God ordered for the ancient tabernacle were something exquisite. They were a dream of beauty carved out of loveliness. They were made of ham mered gold, stood in a foot of gold and had six branches of gold blooming all along in six lilies of gold each, and lips of gold, from which the candles lifted their holy fire. Andi the best houses in any city ought to be the churches the best built, the best ventilated, the best swept the best windowed, and the best ehandeliered. Log cabins may do in neighborhoods where most of the ple live in log cabins, but let there ~pala tial churches for regions where many of the people live in palaces. Do not have a better place for yourself than for your Lord and King. Do not ;ve in a parlor and put your Christ in a iitchen. These seven candlesticks of which I speak were not made of pewter or iren. They were golden candlesticks, and gold is not only a valuable, but a bright me cal. Have everything about your church bright-your ujhtrs with smil ing fhces, your mufsie jubilain,. your bandshaking cordial, your entire ser vice attr'active. Many people feel that in church they must look dull, in order to boereverential, and many whose faces in other kinds of assemblage show all the different phases of emotion have in church no more expression than the back wheel of a hearse. Brighten up and be responsive. If you feel like weeping, weep. If you feel like smil ing, smile. If you feel indgnant at somo wrong assailed from tha pulpit. frown. Do not leave your naturalness and r s liency home because it is Sun da mrn. If a offcer of a church i , ave the muslc black and the minister in black preach a bc sr o,, and from invocation to benedictin h a1ve the iipression black, few will come. and thoSe who do collie will wi!h that they- had not come at all. Golden candlesticks! Scour up the six lilies on each branch and know that the more lovely and bright they are the more tit they are to hold the light. liut Constantine, but transformed to basy uses by Mohammed the second. Pile out Of 'olored marble. a cupola with 24 windows soaring to a height of 18') feet. the ceiling one great bewilderment of mosaic, galleries supported by eight coluins of porphyry and (;7 columns of green jasper, nine bronze do rs with alto relievo work, fascinating to the eye of any artist, vases and vestments in crusted with all manner of precious stones. Four walls on fire with inde scribable splendor. Though labor was cheap. the build ing cost :l_.5l)0,00. Ecclesiastical structure, almost supernatural in pomp and majesty. But Mohammedanism tore down from the walls of that build in: all the saintly and Christly images. and high up in the dome the figure of the cross was rubbed out that the cres cent of the barbarous Turk might be substituted. A great church, but no Christ: A gorigeous candlestick, but no candle: Ten thousand such chureb.:s would not give the world as much light :s one homemade tallow candle by which last night some grandmother in the eighties pu: on her spectacles and read the Psalns of David in large type. Up with the churches by all means! Hundreds of them, thousands of them. and the more the better. But let each one be a blaze of heavenly light, making the world brighter and brighter, till the last shadow has disappeared and the last of the suffering children of God shall have reached the land where they have no need of candlestick or "of cau dle. neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever." Seven candlesticks the complete number of lights! Let your light shine before men, that they, seeing your good works may glorify your Father which is in heaven. Turn now in your Bible to the seven stars. We are distinctly told that they are the ministers of religion. Some are large stars, some of them small stars, some of them sweep a wide circuit and some of them a small circuit, but so fa: as they are genuine they get their light from the great central sun around whom they make revolution. Let each one keep in his sphere. The solar system would be soon wrecked if the stars, in stead of keeping their own orbits should go to hunting down other stars. Minis ters of religion should never clash. But in all the centuries of the Christian church some of these stars have been hunting an Edward Irving or a Horace Bushnell or an Albert Barnes, and the stars that were in pursuit of the other stars lost their own orbit, and some of them could never again find it. Alas for the heresy hunters! The best way to destroy error is to preach the truth. The best way to scatter darkness is to strike alight. There is in immensity room enough for all the stars and in the church room enough for all the minis ters. The ministers who give up righte ousness and the truth will get punish ment enough anyhow, for they are "the wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." I should like, as a minister, when I am dying to be able truthfully to say what a captain of the English army, fallen at the head of his column and dying on the Egy ptian battlefield, said to General Wolseley, who came to con dole with him: "I led them straight. Didn't I lead them straight, general?" God has put us ministers as captains in this battlefield of truth against error. Great at last will be our chagrin if we fah leading the people the wrong way, but great will be our gladnesr. if when the battle is over we can hand our sword back to our great commander, saying: "Lord Jesus! We led the people straight. Didn't we lead them straight? Those ministers who go off at a tangent and preach some other gospel are not stars, but comets, and they flash across the heavens a little while and make people stare and throw down a few meteoric stones, and then go out of sight if not out of existence. Brethren in the ministry, let us remember that God calls us stars, and our business is to shine and to keep our own sphere, and then when we get done trying to light up the darkness of this world we will wheel into higher spheres, and in us shall be fulfilled the promise. "They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever. The ministers are not all Pecksniffs and canting hypocrites, as some would have you think! Forgive me if, hav ing at other times glorilied the medical profession and the legal profession and the literary profession, I glorify my own. I have seen them in their homes and heard thesn in their pulpits, and a grandei array of men never breathed, and the Bible figure is not strained when it ('lls them stars. And whole constellations of glorious miAisters have already taken their places on high, where they shine even brighter than they shone on earth. Ldward N. Kirk of the Congregational church, Stephen 1. Tying of the Episcopal church, Mat thew Simpson of the Methodist church, John D)owling of the Baptist chunch. Samuel K. Talmage of the P'resbyte ian church, Thomas DeWitt of the Reformed church, John Uhambers of the Independent church, and there 1 stop, for it so happens that I have men tic ed the seven stars of the seven churches. I pass on to another mighty Bible seven, and they are the seven seals. St. John in vision saw a scroll with sev en seals, and he heard an angel cry: "Who is worthy to loose the seals there of?" Take eight or ten sheets of fool scap paper, paste them together and roll them into a scroll and have the scroll at seven different places sealed with sealing wax. You unroll the scroll till you come to one of these seals and then you can go no farther until you break that seal. Then un roll again until you come to ¬her seal, and you can go no farther until you break that seal. Then you go on until all the seven seals are broken and the contents of the entire scroll are re vealed. Now, that scroll with seven seals held by the angel was the proph ecy of what was to come on the earth. It meant that the knowledge of the fu ture was with God, and no man and no anel was worthy to open it, but the Rble says Christ opened it and broke all the seven seals. lie broke the first seal and unrolled the scroll, and there was a picture of a white horse, and that meant prosperity and triumph for the ~oan empire, and so it really came to to pass that for 90 years virtuous em perors succeeded each other-N erva Trajan and Antoninus. Christ in the vision broke the second seal and unroll ed arain, and there was a picture of a Ired horse, and that meant bloodshed, and so it really came to pass, and the tons and wars: Then Christ broke thc third scal and unrolled it, and there was a picture of a black horse, which in all literature means famine, oppression and taxation, and so it really came to pass. Christ went on until he broke all the seven seals and opened all the scroll. Well, the future of all of us is a sealed scroll, and I am glad that no oae but Christ can open it. Do not let us join that class of Chritians in our day who are trying to break the seven seals of the future. They are trying to peep into things they have no business with. Do not go to some necromancer or spiritualist or soothsayer or fortune tel ler to find out what is going to happen to yourself or your family or your friends. Wait till Christ breaks the seal to find out whether in your own personal life or the life of the nation or the life of the world it is going to be the white horse of prosperity or the red horse of war or the black horse of fam inc. You will soon enough see him paw and hear him neigh. Take care of the present, and the future will take care of itself. If a man live 70 years, his biography is in a scroll having at least seven seals. And let him not during the first ten years of his life try to look intothe twenties, nor the twen tics into the thirties. nor the thirties in to the forties, nor the forties into the fifties, nor the fifties into the sixties, nor the sixties into th- seventies. From the way the years have got the habit of racing along I guess you will not have to wait a great while before all the seals of the future are broken. I would not give 2 cents to know how long I am go ing to live or in what day of what year the world is going to be demolished. I would rather give $1,000 not to know. Suppose some one could break the next seal in the scroll of your personal his tory and should tell you that on the next 4th of July, 1901, you were to die, the summer after next, how much would you be good for between this and that? It would from now until then be a prolonged funeral. You would be counting the months and the days, and your family and friends would oe count ing them, and next 4th of July you would rub your hands together and whine: "One year from today I am to go, Dear me! I wish no one had told me so long before. I wish that ne cromancer had not broken the seal of the future." And meeting some under taker, you would say: "I hope you will keep yourself free for an engagement the 4th of July, 1901. That day you will be needed at my house. To sn'v time you might as well take my mt( ure now, 5 feet 11 inches." I am g; that Christ dropped a thick veil overt Ie hour of our demise and of the hour of the world's destruction when he said: "Of that day and hour knoxveth no man; no, not the angels, but my Father only." Keep your hands off the seven seals. There is another mighty seven of the Bible-namely, the seven thunders. What those thunders meant we are not told, and there has been much guessing about them. But they are to come, we are told, before the end of all things, and the world cannot get along without them. Thunder is the speech of light ning. There are evils in our world which must be thundered down and which will require at least seven volleys to prostrate them. We are all doing nice, delicate, soft handed work in churches and reformatory institutions, against the evils of the world, andl much of it amounts to a teaspoon dip ping out the Atlantic ocean, or a clam shell digging away at a mountain, or a tack hammer smiting the Gibraltar. What is needed is thunderbolts, and at least seven of them. There is the long line of fraudulent commercial establishments, every stone in the foundation and every brick in the wall, and every nail in the rafter made out of dishonesty, skeletons of poorly paid sewing girls' arms in every beam of that establishment, human nerves worked into every figure of that embroidery, blood in the deep dye of that refulgent upholstery, billions of dolhrs of accu mulated fraud intrenched in massive storehouses and stock companies mani pulated by unscrupulous men, until the monopoly is defiant of all earth and heaven. Flow shall the evil be over come? By treatises on the maxim, "Honesty is the best policy?" Or by soft repetition of the golden rule that we must "Do unto others as we would have the'n do to us?" No, it will not be done that way. What is needed and will come is the seven thunders. There is drunkenness backed up by a eaital mightier than in aoy other busi ness. Intoxicating liquors enough in this country to float a navy. Good grain to the amount of 67,950,000 bush els annually destroyed to make the deadly liquid. Breweries, distilleries, gin shops, rum palaces, liquor associa tions, our nation spending annually $740,000,000 for rum, resulting in bank ruptcy, disease, pauperism, filth, assas sination, death, illimitable woe. What will stop them? High license? No. Prohibition laws? No. Churches? No. Moral suasion? No. Thunder bolts will do it; nothing else will. Seven thunders! Yonder are intrenched infidelity and atheism, with their magazines of litera ture scoffing at our Christianity, their Hoe printing presses busy day and night. There are their blaspheming apostles, their drunken Tonfaines and libertime Voltaires of the presenia'~ well as the past, re-enforced by all the powers of darkness, from highest de mon to lowest imp. What will extirpate those monsters of infidelity and athe ism? John Brown's shorter catechism about "Who made you" or Westnmins ter catechism about "What is the chief end of man?" No. Thunderbolts! The seven thunders! For the impure ties of the world, empalaced as well as cellared, epauleted as well as ragged, enthroned as well as ditched; for cor rupt legislation which at times makes our state and national capitals a hemis pheric stench; for superstitions that keep whole nations in squalor century after century, their juggernauts crush ing, their knives lacerating, their waters drowning their funeral pyres burning, the seven theunders! Oh, men ano women, disheartened at the bad way things often go, hear you not a rumbling down the sky of heavy artillery, coming in on our side, the seven thunders of the Almighty? Do not let us try to wield them ourselves. They are too heavy and too fiery for us to handle, but God can and God will, and when all mercy has failed and all milder means are exhausted, then judgement will begin. Thunderbola! Depend upon it, that what is not done under the flash of the seven candle sticks will be done by the trampling of the seven thunders. But I leave this imperial and multipotent numeral seven, where the Bible leaves it, imbedded in the finest wall that was ever built or will be constructed, the wall of heaven. It is the seven strata of precious stones that make up that wall. After naming six of the precious stones in that wall the Bible cries out, "The seventh chrysoite is an exquisite green, and in that seventh layer of the heavenly wall shall be preserved forever the domin ant color of the earth we once inhabited. I have sometime~s been saddened at to scieuce and revelation, is to be blot ted out of existence, for it is such a beautiful world. B-ut here in this layer of the heavenly wall, where the numeral seven is to be imbedded. this stratum of green is to be photographed and embalned and perpetuated, the color of the grass that covers the earth, the color of the foliage that fills the for est, the color of the deep sea. One glance at that green chrysolite, 1,000. 000 years after this planet has been ex tinguished. will bring to mind just how it looked in summer and spring, and we will say to those who were born blind on earth and never saw at all in this world after this they have obtained full eyesight in heiven, 'If you would know how the earth appeared ;n June and August, look at the seventh layer of the heavenly wall, the green of the chrysolite." And while we stand there and talk, spirit with spirit, that old color of the earth, which had more sway than all the other colors put together, will bring back to us our earthly experi ences, and, noticing that this green chrysolite is the seventh layer of crys tallized magnificence. we may bethink ourselves of the domination of that numeral seven over all other numerals and thank God that in the dark earth we left behind us we so long enjoyed the light of the seven golden candle sticks and were all of us permitted to shine among the seven stars of more or less magnitude, and that all the seven seals of the mysterious future have been broken wide open for us by a lov ing Christ, and that the seven thunders, having done their work, have ceased reverberation, and that the numeral seven, which did such tremendous work in the history of nations on earth, has been given such a high place in that Niagara of colors, the wall of heaven, "the fisrt foundation of which is Jas per; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite." The Money Question. The thing of fundamental importance in money is stability of exchange value or purchasing power. Any system of finance that fails to give us a unit of value, which, during long periods of time, measures off approximately the same quantity of staple commodities as its equivalent, is essentially a dishonest and unsound system. We hear much about "money that is sound, safe, hon '. the best, at a parity with gold, that ill stand the fire and hammer test, worth 100 cents on the dollar," etc., and also much about "depreciated, de based dishonest fifty-cent dollars," but those who prate loud and long on this matter utterly fail to grasp the true and complete conception of money, viz., that it is not merely a medium of ex change, but also it is a standard of value for deferred payments. In the words of England's great statesman, Mr. Balfour, "money has to serve not merely as a medium of exchange, bu also as a fair and permanent record of obligations extending over long periods of time. This is the great and funda metal requirement." And he further says here the gold standard totally and lamentably fails." If money was sim ply a medium by which products were exchanged, and there was no such thing as credit in the business world, it might fluctuate in purchasing power without working any great havoc, but it so happens that the great hulk ofj business is done on credit, that pro gress, industrial development and civil ization are impossible without it. By means of it the seas have been covered with commerce, the continent cob webbed with transportation lines, and the wilderness turned into mighty cities, fruitful farms and happy homes. They who have built up the world, been the pioneers of civilization, clear ed up the prairies and founded our workshops, churches and schools have done it with borrowed funds. They are the ones who, above all others, should be appreciated, upheld and encouraged. It ought to be evident to the dullest mind that any system of money that compels these borrowers to return a bet ter dollar, one that requires more la bor to get, than the one borrowed, if an unjust and dishonest one, and strikes a fatal blow at the very foundation of the social and business world. Judged by the supreme, rational and righteous tests of stability of purchasing power. the gold dollar has grown to be a 200 cent dollar measured by the honest 100 cent dollar of twenty-six years ago. It was such a dollar then because it had kept comparatively stable for many years in exchange value over commodi ties, owing to the fact that silver had equal rights at the world's mints, and shared with it equally the world's de mand for redemption money. Every man who has entered into any time contract to pay dollars since the world's mints were shut to the unlim ited coinage of silver has been forced to pay dollars worth from 1 to 100 per cent more, according to the age of the debt, than the ones lhe borrowed, and that he ought to pay. This is a fact, because the dollar has grown 100 per cent. since in command over stable comnmodities. To the extent that dol lars h~te thus grown, the unfortunate debtors and dil others subject to fixed chargres have been robbed. Since 1873 the governments of the world have been in league with bond and mortgage 1 s and the receivers of fixed in comes a .plunder the world's toilers without red'ee. Through the efforts of the schemig villains. wvho have tried to coil the'contraating folds of the gold standard ar&tad the neeks. of labor, the output of thevints has been lessened till it requires double the la bor and products of labor to earn the dollars due on the mortgaged-homes of millions of poor men that it would have required had the world's Output of dollars been allowed to keep apace with it soutput of products. Corn Stalk Trust. And now it is said that a corn stalk trust will be organized. The cornstalk is used in the manufacture of cellulose' Only a few thousand tons of stalks aro now used, but it is said the trust will build other factories in the great corrn belt, and it is the expectation that the stalks will sell f~r $5 or SGa ton. Negro Robber Lynched. Henry Stewart. the negro whc robbed and seriously shot Gail Hamilton, a iero, and robbed M. Choate, a section foreman, Sunday morning, at Fulton, Ky., was taken out at midnight Tues day and lynched by a supposed negro and white mob. The excitement is high among the negroes. He Was Lusky. The northern newspapers are making a big fuss over the fact that a young woman ran away and married a man who was to be an usher at her wedding to another man. The man who was left is certainly lucky. The other ellows case has not yet been settled. Five Drowned. Five men were drowned Thursday in the Mississippi a mile above Clerks ville, Mo., by the overturning of a skiff. They were government laborers engaged impnmv mat work. "THE WIDOW'S CHAIN." A Gift to the Epworth Orphanage and Its Effects. The following is from the last is sue of the Southern Christian Advo cate: We are pleased to publish the cor respondence and appeal below. Such self-sacrifice as this woman shows should be known and recognized. South Carolina Methodists can contribute the thousand dollars called for by Brother Waddell, and the sum should be placed where in all time to come men may learn of the "Widow's Chain." We give Brother Waddell's letter en tire: Dear Dr. Wilson: On the 8th of June I received an express package in which there was a valuable gold chain. It was from an unknown donor to the Epworth orphanage. The following letter was enclosed in thosame package with the chain: Dear Brother: As I listened to your talk how I wished for money; but I had none to give. I enclose a chain placed around my neck when a bride by my dear husband, long since gone to rest. You can imagine the remem brances that cluster around it. I will say no more. The chain is worth $20, sold as old gold valued by a jeweler. At least you can get something for it. It is all I have to give. May the Lord bless you in your work and open up the way to greater things is the humble prayer of A Widow. Of course the chain must go back to the unknown giver, when she is found, but the men and women of this State, of good impulses and noble sentiments, should put up at least $1,000 as re demption money for the chain. As the widow who contributed her two mites and the woman who broke the box of ointment over the head of the Master are perpetuated in history because of the noble inspiration that comes to us through their deeds, so should this no ble act of self-denial inspire us to sac rifices for the Master's sake. This wo man gives, possibly, one of her dear est possessions to bless and to help others. See what Brother McLeod says about it: Dear Brother Waddell: Find my check for $50 on the "Widow's Chain" as my part. I hope to raise as much more in a day or two and send it. Your brother, J. W. McLeod. Maaning, S. C. See what Brother Strauss has to say: Dear Sir and Brother: Enclosed find my check for $20 sent by Trinity Sun day school, Yorkville, S. C., for the gold chain sent to you by the unknown widow. When you find her please re turn the chain to her with the compli ments of Trinity Sunday School, York ville. Yours fraternally. H. C. Strauss. If this noble, self-sacrificing deed is worth anything to you, send us the amount and let the chain be redeemed, not by its intrinsic value in dollars and cents, but according to the greatness of the sacrifice. Such a deed as this is worth something. Yours truly, G. H. Waddell, Columbia, S. C., June 19 1899. Mob Law in New England. While the overly good people of New England have been holding up their hands in holy horror because of an oc cassional lynching in the South that most brutal of all w'ob law punish ment, tarring and featiering, seems to have become a favorite pastime among our Yankee brethren. A few days ago a New Hampshire sheriff was the vic tim in a performance similar to that in which the Maine preacher had starred a week or two before, with the exception that the sheriff was not rid den on a rail, as it is said the preacher was. The sheriff-Frank Yatter, of Haverhill-it seems had arrested a a citizen named Clark for drunkenness. Clark pleadedi guilty and was fined. Two days later the sheriff was sum moned to quell an alleged drunken dis turbance, when he was enticed into a basement and tarred and feathered by a mob. After his escape from the mob he started in to have his tormentors borught to justice, but the citizens "made it so warm for him' that he fled the state in-to Vermont. A Han over, N. H., dispatch to the New York Press telling of the affair excuses it on the ground that Yatter's "neighbors found him none too pleasant a man to get along with, and certain insults which he is alleged to have offered to a woman in Haverhill only served to make matters worse." That justifies the whole proceeding. The overly pious, good peoplo of Haverhill did not like the Sheriff, and therefore they tarred and feathered him. There is no mob law in this when it is done in New England, but it is decidedly so when done in the South. Oh, ye hypocrites! Chicago Ahead. The Greenville News says "it was supposed that Chicago had discounted New York and Atlanta, when one of her citizens stole his neighbor's well. Chicago added to her laurels a few years ago by gobbling a railway freight train with contents. Another incident has come to light showing the superiority of Chicago experts over the two rival cities. About a year ago fifty hospital ambulances billed for Tampa, Florida, were loaded on seventeen freight cars at Chicago. and from that day to this nothing has been heard from cars or ambulances. Something like a ton of red cape, enough to reach from Chicago to Tampa has been used to ascertain the location of the missing train and ambulances, but the department can get no clue either as to start or finish of the transportation. The railway company is clamoring for the missing cars. claimed to have been in the hands of the government and the goverument is demanding return of the ambulances or twenty thousand dollars, invoice of same. All that can be learned is that train and ambulances melted away in Chicago and indication9 are that they will remain melted." Massacre by Filipinos Captain Johnson Spicer, of the Brit sh ship George T. Hay, recently from Manila, has received a letter from his other, Capt. George Spicer, of the British ship Glooscap, saying that all the'. adult male Spanish residents of Balbac, the extreme southwest island of the\Philipines, had been massacred by the natives. The letter was given to J. '1g. Whitney & Co., shipping agents of Si New street, and they sent it to the n aritime exchange, where it was posted\on the bulletin board. CmcAohas gone to bragging again about her \population. The Atlanta Journal thi-;ks that if the Windy City continues to. brag New York will have to fnd samifaing else to annex. A QUEER OLD WORLD. If virtlu uhi allure like sin How easil': might goodness win. If right went laughing by like wrong The devil would lose half his throng. If day sought pleasure like the night Dawn need not blush to face the light. But virtue seems socold and proud That merry sin attracts the crowd. And night has such a solemn air Men follow wrong, the debonair. And care so cats the daytime up At night they seize mard folly's cup. Aad drink forgetfulness 'till dawn, And so the queer old world goes on. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox. A STRANGE STORY. BY G. W. S. ANGELL. It was one of our Friday night sym posiuus at the Cosmos Club. and as our particular clique was made up of Merton, from the Geological Survey; Herring. of the Fish Commission, to gether with Long, from the Agricultur al Bureau; De Forrest, of tile Army Medical Museum. and myself, then serving as Washii'gton correspondent for a New York paper. it is needless to say that the talk had run the entire gamut of art, literature and science, and had for the moment settled on the belief in dual personalities. "I tell you. gentl-men," said 'Merton. with the authoritative air by which he always attempted to settle ques tions under discussion. "that while I am willing to admit that there may be some things almost impossible to prove or disprove scientlilcally, yet this talk about dual personality, sub conscious mind and all such stuff is. vulgarly speaking, simply rot." And he lay back in his chair with a self satisfied air. as though there was nothing more to be said on the sub ject. Long took up the argument, and the debate grew rather warm as the pros and cons were laid down in that ex cathedra way which we yougg men are apt to affect. Dr. De Forrest had thus far taken no part in the discus sion, but had smiled once or twice at our assertions in a way that assured us, who knew him so well, that he had a good story to tell if we could only draw him out. "Come, Doctor." said Long. as he ordered a fresh round of brandies and soda for the crowd, "you ought -to know something about this question, for you told us last week thjt you had studied under Charcot when you were in Paris." De Forrest selected a fresh perfecto from the box at his side, lighted it in his usual careful way and blew a few rings of smoke, which he watched float lazily toward the ceiling, before he spoke. "Well, boys." he began, "as Merton has just said, there are some things which we cannot as yet decide by purely physical methods. We cannot weight the soul in our most delicate balance, though the scale sinks if we add but the fraction of ahair, nor can we by our most subtle reagents analyze that vital spark we call life in our lab oratories. I do not care to-iAght to speak of the many curious phenomena which I witnessed during my studies in Paris, for they might furnish you with a clew to the story which is to follow; but I'll tell you a little Incident in real life which occured when I was very young in my New York practice, and then leave the question for you to decide. "When I established myself in N.ew xork, back in the sixties, fresh from my studies at Vienna, I joined the Bohemia Club. That was not its name, but as none or you are old enough to remember the club it will do as well as any other, and 1 shall take the liberty of changing the names of the actors in my story as well, for obvious reasons. "We were a rather jolly crowd at the Bohemia, for we worked hard at our different lines all day and then met at the club in the evenings for relaxa tion and to compare notes. You see we were young then, and not authori ties in our several branches, as you all are here." and he smiled in his quizzical way as he looked round our little circle. "T here were two Southerners in the club." he continued, "both M. D's, and although greatly alike in their features and niarvelously so in their dress, they were totally different in char ater, and I suppose It would be hard to dind in any club two men further apart in their moral and mental qualites. Whiting had been a practis ing physician for a year or more arnd had already a large clientele. He was a splendid fellow, large of frame but straight as an arrow, with great brown eyes that looked you squarely in the face when he spoke, and, with all his physical strength, kind and gentle as a woman. He was loved by every one at the club, where we knew him as the soul of honor and generous to a fault. "D~avis, on the other hand, though he was of the same olive hued type and enough like Whiting in features to be his twin brother, had a sneering expression on his face, and when he looked at you with his eyes half closed and that cynical smile on his lips he made me think of the copperhead of his own Louisiana sw-amps. He was a heavy drinker, and spent money enough at the club. but he was never known to do a kind act, and we were sure he never spent a dollar on any one else unless lie sawv that he wvould gain some advantage ini return. "Both of the men had ample niwans of their ow-n, but Davis had never practiced. so far as we knew, and where he got his title of doctor from or w-here he lived no one seemed to know-. Some said that lhe was an ex pert chemist and dabbled in alchenmy is wvell. but lie made no close ftiends, and seldom spoke of his own life. "It happened inat Davis and Whit ing had never met at the club, as eamch came but seldom, but we often chall'ed one about the other. and from their facial resomblence dubbed them the two Dromios. Jekyll and Ihyde would have been more aplpropriaite, but this was long before Stevenson's book w-as written. "Wh iting always resented a niy chance alusion to his double. although goodl natured at the rest of our chaff, and seemed to dloubt Vhe actual existence of Davis. wvhom he had heard of hut never met, and thought wve w-ere simply trying to pumt up a game on him. Naturally the imo're he scoffed at the reality of D avis the more we nag gd him, until tinamlly ini sheer despera tioa he proposedh to give a (luiet little dinner for four of us, at which Robin-I son, an artist and fellow club)-mnember, myself, Davis and Whiting were to be the quart(et. "Davis promised to be there. if pos sible, and said lie was already Ge uainted with Whiting-of c'ourise liy reputat'on only. he added with that cvicail smile we all hated. On the night of the (dinnier Robinson and I were on hand early, for we were anx ios to see the meeting betwveen Datvis and Whiting. andl had made several bets witu the other fellows as to whetecr l 'avis would show tip. "'Whiting~ app ea red punc'tually as usul. bulit thou~tghI we wai ted until amid night D avis failed te materialize. (if course this set tieu' the mnaitter in Whit lg's mind forth time be Iinzg, and lhe made us set up several hot ti-s of wine to drink to the health of his mythical counterpart, as he enlied hiim. "The next night, however, lie came to the club, and drawin.; Robinson and me aside, said:-"'lillys, this mat ter has gone too farn. 1 like a joke, but I think it is rather rough for you r...6 vut- igio':itee of hi inenig ie ahoiNjed us a let r;r from Davis regret ting his inability w Le Present the night before. and saying that le was -too ill at the mioient to make his re grets in person. -But, my dear fellow." said Isobin son. *if you really think us guilty of this letter will you kindly explain how it happens to be written on your own papery "Whiting grabbed up the note and seemed frightened for the nionent, for at the head of the letter was his crest and the envelope bore the impres sion of his private se:il. which he ai ways wore on his watch chain. Ile looked at it searchinaly. and then left the club without a word. "After this occurrence we ceased bantering him about Davis and passed the word around to the other fellows to drop it, for we saw that the matter worried him greatly and feared the ef fect of our chaff on his high strung. nervous tempermient. Davis came to the club less frequently during the winter, but at every mention of Whit ing's name he siled and said lie was sorry they did not hapen to meet. "One day, early in the spring. Whit ing sent a note asking me to come up to his den after dinner, as lie had some thing of importance to tell. and begged me not to fail him. I had often been to his otlice on Madison avAnue. but had never visited hiin at his rooms on -tli street. It was a quiet neighbor hood. west of Ninth avenue, and the house was one of a row of old fashion ed frame buildings still in good repair. but backed up :wainst their rear were several ramshackel old tenements, nearly deserted by tenants. .I lial not seen Whiting for some months and was shocked by the change in his appearance. There were dark circies under his eyes and a strange hunted expression jn his face. He grasped my hand eagerly and drew a chair for ie in front of the grate tire, for the evenings were still cool. " 'Do(.' he exclaimed suddenly. after we had lit our cigars and talked glit tering generalities for a few minutes. -that fellow Davis is killing me by inches." - -Why. old man,' I said, 'so you have colie to believe in him at last.' I started to laugh . but checked my self wien I saw the expresion of his face. - 'What is it. may dear boy' I asked. soothingly. -It certainly can't be so serious. What has he been up to now,! -- 'Tis dammned queer business,' said Whiting excitedly. -and I can't imagine his motive: but these are the facts. For several weeks this fellow has dogged my footsteps. and after I have made a professional call and left the usual prescription he has sent a note to the patient imitating my handwrit ing and changing the medicines for others. which. had they been taken as directed. would have in some cases proved fatial. Fortunately the drug gists have telephoned me that there was sone mistake and I have been able to 'orrect it. But of course this eonstant changing of prescriptions has affected ny practice terribly, and people are beginning to think that my mind is unbalanced.' 'But, my dear fellow,' said I, trying to quiet him. 'why not give up your practice for a few weeks and take a decided rest, and meanwhile we will deal with this fellow Davis vs he deserves.' " 'But that is,. not all,' continued Whiting, despairingly. 'It is true I don't need the income from my practice, and work more from the love of it than for the fees, but he has gone still further and dared to call on Miss Wiley, my fiancee, and tell her many of the foolish escapades of my college days. the secret of which I thought was buried in my own breast. I have tried to explain them away, but of course cannot deny the tales, and I fear It is all over for me in that quart. er. I can't see how she could listen to the cad or where she could have met him.' "Davis' actions seemed to be more inexplicable than ever, and I longed to get hold of the brute and force an ex* planation from him; but, hiding my anger. I tried to quiet Whiting, and finally prevailed upon him to take a heavy dose of choral, which I pre pared, and to try to get a night's rest, promising to see Miss Wiley shortly and attempt to patch up matters. "I left him asleep on his lounge, and, as it was still early, walked over to M1adison avenue, determined to call on Mi1ss Wiley. whom I knew slightly, and tell her of Whiting's condition. "There was a light in the drawing room, and. ringing the bell, I gave my card to the servant, and he ushered me in unannounced- Miss Wiley sat at the piano, her hands on the keys, while standing at her side and looking down ardently into her upturned face was-Davis. "For a moment I could not speak and seemed glued to +he floor, but Davis quickly advanced and, after a few polite inquiries about my health and his dear friend Whiting. pleaded an engagement and left. "His presence in the house and his unmistakabb ~--.like Mtude made it very painful for me to speak, Dut remembering the condition of poor Whiting and how heartbroken heseem ed, I ventured to speak about Davis and asked where she had met him. " 'Oh, I have only known him a few weeks,' she said. 'He called with a letter of intrgduction from Dr. Whit lg and said they were fellow students in the South. IIe has been most kind and attentive to me, and is teaching mec some of his own songs.' And she rattled on about his divine voice, while I sat speechiless at the new complica tion of atfairs. "At last I blurted out. 'Would you kindly let mec see the letter of intro eutiony addinig that Dr. Whiting hatd proiseiid me letters to somec of his friends in Europe and I wished to see his miethiods. "I felt that this was a most feeble exuse, but could think of nothing else, and of coeurse M1iss Wiley w~as too po lite to express her surprise at the strange request. Going to a dainty writing desk in the corner she caine bac k and handcd me the letter. "TIher'e was no doubt of the chiro grahiy heing exactly similar to Whit ing's. I saw the same old fashioned cpitals and crisp,sharp endings of each word,. andl as for the signature, his banuk woutld have sworn to it. Be shies. there was his crest and seal, which I new knew~ so w~ell. I don't know~ whlat I saiid in thanking her, for mys heal was in a whirl. hui. I had enough senlse' to say good night anal qutic'kly withdraw. "Iowv Davis culd have obtatined the ~apet' and seal. or how lie l'arned of all those college scrapes of Whiting's. could not imaagine. But I saw that his relations with 31iss Wiley had gone so far that it would do not good for mie to interfere. tad that I sheouhd only be snubbed lby her for my imper'tiln ene in mneddling in other people's busiess. "Whiting was out whleni I calid at his rooms next mio.rninhg :a his evant mt told mei that he had~ goine to he cntry for a ret and leILft no adress. "It wast peiha ps a mnonth afterwaird that lie ttu'neda upi at the cltib one night, hookinig no re ghiast ly t han ever. He would net say wvhere he had been and positively <..elinteu to discuss the Davis matter. "1 know lie talked wildly about hyp n'ti2 control atnd kindred stubjects, un til we thought his mind aft'ected, and tried to calni him, but he grew more and more excited, until tinally I saw him tturn pale and clutch the back of a chair, and noticed a little stream of froty blood cozing fromn between his clenched teeth as he staggered out of the room. "I jumped up from the sofa and fol 1lowAen anouich- ea I cnurd hnt whe It ramen c uUM ovelr ne was gela. and I met Drivis just coming In. *He walked leisurely into the cafe and leaned against tie mantelpiece. To my excited iniuiries about Whiting he simply smiled and said he had not noticed him going out, but I saw him scratching a small red spot from his cuff with his linger nail and felt sure they must have met. " 'Gentlemen,' said Davis, in his drawling voice, 'I beg you will con gratulate me on my approaching mar riage, and pardon my not mentloning u.e lady's name in the club. Steward, please take the orders.' "Most of us refused to drink with him, for we despised the man, and I lett him chatting with a few of his particular cronies and went up to Whiting's room. I heard afterward that Davis left very shortly after I did. ,-Whiting had not come home and I spent the night hunting through hotels, police stations, hospitals and even the Morgue. for I felt sure that he had ruptured a blood vessel in his lungs. which must quickly prove fatal. But I could find no trace of him, and final ly. utterly worn out. went to my rooms to toss aaout until midday with a horrible nightmare, in which Whiting and Davis were struggling In one an other's grasp. each striving to kill the other. "At lunch- I picked up a morning paper and scanned the society news listlessly until my eyes lit upon the rumored engagement of Dr. J. H. Davis, formerly of New Orleans, and Miss Isabene Wiley, the well known belle. i-c. "I sat musing over the strange vicissitudes of fate and wondering what had become of poor Wniting. Suddenly a newsboy rushed into the restaurant calling extras, and the first heading I saw was: 'Sudden death of Dr. Davis.' I eagerly read the usual detailed account of how he had been found that morn ing dead in his bed, evidently, the paper stated, from a' ruptured blood vessel, as the bed clothing and carpets were saturated with blood, but no wound was found on his body. "Strangely enough, he lived in one of the old tenements back of Whiting's home, and measurements which I made subsequently showed that his rooms and Whiting's must have been on similar floors and directly back to back. Remembering the stolen note paper I trieu to find some entrance be tween the two houses, but the '-.alls were solid, and even the wall paperu showed naught but a few little cracks due to their many years' service. 'This. gentlemen," said Dr. De Forrest, drawing his glass and taking up his hat and cane from the sofa," is a story of actual life, and -i of you have an explanation to offer I should be happy to hear it." We could say noting for a moment, and then the irrepressible Merton found his tongue. "But how about Dr. Whiting" he asked. "As for him, gentlemen," said Dr._ De Forrest, solemnly, as he stood by the open door, "I know nothing further except that he was never found. But I have my theory. Good night!" And he closed the door. Public Drinking Troughs. Public drinking troughs for horses are condemned by a well-known veter Inary surgeon on the ground that they propagate certain diseases peculiar to horses. The shovel Fish. The shovel fish is so called because , it uses its nose to turn over the mud at the bottom of the sea in quest of the worms and small shellfish on which it feeds. Skate 150 ies a Day. Laplanders think nothing of covering 150 miles a day on their skates. THE CEIf 5 W~.HE What the Department of Agicutur~ Says Abbu 2~~ The following is the weekly bulletin of the South Carolina section c.f the climate and crop service of the United States weather bureau issued last week by Director Bauer: The temperature daring the week ending June 26th, averaged nearly noh mal, with cool nights early in he week, but not cold enough to check tlil growth of crops. The rainfall was confined to su s areas in the southeastern portinni ot the State, where light to heavy show ers occurred on the 21st, accompanied 7 in places by damaging hail and high winds. A light shower occurred in other portions of the State on the same date. It is very dry over the north central and northwestern counties, wherA crops of all kinds, except pos sibly early cotton, are suffering for rain. The weather wvas favorable for culti vating field crops, and but few reports of grassy ie'lda were received. Bud worms continue to devastate corn and bacco. catterp'illars to destroy rice, d li.:e have appeared on young e->ton a sinzle county. Cotton e.>ntinues to do well, with a rapid growth except in the "up-coun try," where the soil lacks imoisture, but the crop~ as a whole is very ; romis ing. Blooms arc reported from nearly every setion of the State. Sea Island cotton is in ete&lient cor.dition as d blooming f'reely. Corn i-,1.roved generally, but is not proisiug except over limited areas. Worms threaten its ruin on bottom lads in Pickens county, and have in jured it severely ceeere. Laying by is general. To~bacco varwe iratly thruughout the distriet. Iteports of damage by worms are bumerous, and usany report very poor stands. Cutting and curing has begun, but this work will not be general until the first week in July. Rice planting is fnished. Young rice is being injured by catterpillars. F:esh water flooding is needed in some sec tions and is not available. Wheat arid oats threshing is nearly finihed; 3ields <.f wheat fall below the average, and of oats are generally poor. Melon~s arc por r in places, and gen erally late. Grapes rottening some. Aples generally plentiful, but are dropping badly. Slow progress is be ing made in setting sweet potato slips. Irish potatoes are-a failure. Patures improving slowly- Peas being sown on stubble and in with corn where the soil will ad miit. The Venerable Senate. The senate of the United States that will meet at the opening of the ~fi sixth congress will be a body of mature men. The average age of' its 86 mem bers is 56 years and 6 months, or a lit tle more. The aggregate years of these 86men are 4.864. The oldest senator is Edmund Winston Pettus, of Alaba ma, who is 7S. and the youngest sena tor is Marion Butler, of North Carolina who is 36. The 86 senators may be classified b)y ages as follows:2 70 and 75...........-.-.----' 70 and 75........--------------' 6 and 65...........----.-17 5 and 60. ..O-- --- - - -1 5 and 55........----.-.-......18 40 and5.......-------.....1 40 and 45J.......-------....5